Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

[Chaos] CitOW game 73

Welcome to Chaos in the Old World, Fantasy Flight Games' boardgame take at Games Workshop's famous fantasy IP. In this game, players take the role of one of the four Ruinous Powers of the universe (and a fifth, uninvited guest). Speaking of which, I believe this calls for some introductions.

Magic Geek as Khorne
Khorne loves long walks on the battlefield and nights alone with the recently deceased. He enjoys handywork, and has even so constructed a throne for himself from nothing but the skulls of the living. He's always on the lookout for new blood - in the most literal sense possible - earning him the title of "The Blood God." If Khorne were a flavor of ice cream, he would be Berserk Banana.

visiblehowl as Nurgle
The other white meat! Or in this case, possibly white pus. Nurgle, now with 300% more pestilence! This is Great Unclean One with the new Nurgle Treatment, and you won't believe it! Have you ever been traveling around, and all of a sudden you wish you had brought your horrific ailments with you? But how are you going to fit it all in your bags? Well that's easy with the new Nurgle (or as we should say, the Old Nurgle)! Watch as it spreads the epidemic over the entire countryside as you pass. And if you order now, we'll throw in this free plaguebearer. Call now!

blahmcblah as Tzeentch

Tayrun as Slaanesh"Working for Khorne? It's ok, I guess, but I worry about my future prospects. You know how I'm probably going to die? Not enough blood left in my neck. You know how those Slaanesh dudes over there are probably going to die? Too many orgasms.
You can see my consternation." - Khorne Thrall
As the Prince of Pain and Pleasure, some might say that Slaanesh 'goes both ways.' His followers don't quite have a 'lust for battle,' but enjoy the 'corruption' of the aristocracy. He finds subtle usurping 'invigorating,' and sometimes even so much that he just has to release his 'keeper of secrets.'

Gorden858 as the Horned Rat
The Horned Rat does not exist, nor is there such thing as the ratmen that worship it. Scholars have concluded that claims of an empire of vicious verminfolk are nothing more than stories invented to frighten the very young. Any reports of having sighted these "skaven" is seen as spreading discord amongst the faithful and, naturally, quite blasphemous. The skittering and scratching you hear deep below you at night is naught but the fevered workings of your imagination. If you insist that you have seen these creatures, please see your nearest witch hunter to be summarily executed for your blatant heresy.

----

This will be a Play-By-Post game of Chaos in the Old World for 5 players. Invitations will be taken from the discussion thread and offered to the top 2 players on the main list, 1 newbies, and 2 hosts. Once chosen, the players will decide which decks to use in this game.

Rules in effect for this game:
Morrslieb decks for Chaos cards
Base set of Old World cardsKhorne's Bloodletter upgrade is only worth 1 VP per kill

Credits of Chaos
Adam Bloom for his rocking Handtracker site.
FWD for the awesome board app.
Mr.Blarney for the original design of our PbP board.
Rend for the comprehensive OP.
Darian for bringing order to chaos as games manager and our resident rules lawyer.

Posts

This phase is much like the crisis phase in BSG, the infection phase in Pandemic, or the "Bad Stuff" phase in any cooperative board game. Except this game isn't so much "cooperative" as it is "petty". Each turn, events will take place in the old world, and this is when they happen.

Every turn one old world card will be drawn, and its effects will be resolved. If there are any choices to be made, the power with the least threat will make those choices. (Threat is determined by who has advanced their victory dial the farthest)

Note: There are only 7 cards in the Old World deck. If the cards have been exhausted, the game ends at the end of the turn. If nobody has achieved a victory condition, the Old World has won- and all players lose.

The Draw Phase

During this phase, each power draws 2 cards, except Tzeentch. Tzeentch draws his hand up to 5. Also, this is when each player refreshes their Power Points to however many applicable.

Starting with Khorne, each player may either summon 1 figure or play 1 chaos card. In order to do so, you spend Power Points. The cost for figures is the circled value on your power's card. Then there are also attack and defend stats, which will be explained in further detail in The Battle Phase.

Chaos Cards each have a cost directly following their name in Handtracker. Additionally, if the cost of your card is followed by M, that means there is a magic symbol on it. If you play that card onto a region, that region gains 1 magic symbol.

Chaos cards are played directly onto one of the nine regions. Each region only has room for 2 cards, but they are cleared at the end phase after all effects are resolved.

If a player chooses neither to summon nor play a card, he passes and his power points go to 0. He may not play again this phase.
Additionally, if a player reaches 0 power points for ANY REASON, they may not play again this phase, EVEN IF THAT PLAYER HAS 0-cost cards or effects. Once you reach 0 power points, you are out of the turn phase, and are skipped until the next turn.

If you have no figures on the board, figures may be summoned to any region. If you have at least one figure on the board, you must summon to that region or an adjacent region. Figures may be summoned either from your reinforcements, OR from the board itself. There is no discount for summoning figures from the board, it simply allows you to move figures instead of summoning new ones if you wish. You may summon a figure from a region in order to place him in an adjacent region even if none of your other figures are adjacent to that region (ie, a single figure can "walk" across the entire map alone).

When making a play during the summoning phase, your entire postshouldbecoloredproperly. All summoning phase plays should include the PP (power points) remaining, and you should fully quote the text of any Chaos cards played in addition to linking the played card in Handtracker.

The Battle Phase

In this phase, dice are rolled. All combat is considered simultaneous, however, hits are chosen in the Order of Play (Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Horned Rat). Each figure with at least 1 attack power rolls a number of dice equal to that attack power. Any dice of 4 or better are hits. The player then designates those hits among any enemy figures in the region.

You may not allocate more hits than necessary to kill an opponent.
You must allocate all hits.

Any figures which are killed will die at the end of the phase. However, unless the hits which killed it happened before normal dice are rolled, they may still return fire.

The Corruption Phase

The Corruption Phase takes place in 2 steps. Domination, and Corruption

In the Domination step, each player's domination value is calculated for each region. This value is equal to the PP cost of any chaos cards that player has played on the region, plus the number of figures (number, not attack power) that player has in the region. If this number exceeds the region's resistance (which is the number by the region's name), and that player has the highest domination score, that player dominates the region and gains Victory Points equal to the region's number.
If two players are tied for first, or if the top player is tied with the region's resistance, no VPs are awarded. Additionally, no VPs are awarded for ruined regions.

In the Corruption step, each cultist a player has in a region adds one Corruption Counter to that region. An exception to this rule is the Horned Rat, whom is incapable of adding corruption at all. If a region should reach 12 or more corruption counters, it then becomes ruined.
When a region becomes ruined, it indicates that the Chaos has taken it over so completely that it is no longer even recognizable. It is now a hellish, daemonic wasteland. First, one of the 5 ruination cards is flipped (the cards go in order, so the values are the same from game to game). Each player who put a corruption counter on the region DURING THE STEP IT WAS RUINED gains a small amount of VPs instantaneously, decided by the card. Also, a Horned Rat player will receive these points as well if he or she has figures occupying the region at the time of its ruination. Later this turn, the player with the most and the second most Corruption in the area gain a large lump sum of VPs as well. After the region is ruined, NO VPs will EVER come of the region again.
If two players are tied for first, they add the first and second place values together and split them. If two players are tied for second, they split second place. If there is no second place, and only one player has counters, the second place VPs are wasted. Again, the Horned Rat is a special case, and any figures present at the time of scoring will count as corruption equal to the figure's cost. For example, a Clan Rat (1) and a Rat Ogre (2) would count as three corruption when scoring a ruined region.

If, at the end of the turn, all 5 Ruination cards have been flipped, the game ends and the player with the most VPs wins the game.

The End Phase

During the end phase:
1. Remove Chaos Cards from the Board
2. Hero Tokens are resolved - meaning that in any region with a hero token, the daemon with the highest threat in that region must sacrifice one figure, as the hero kills it.
3. Resolve Old World cards - If a card on the Old World track asks for a resolution during the end phase, this is when it happens.
4. Score Ruined Regions - this is the step when first/second place ruination is scored
5. Advance Threat Dials - If you have fulfilled your victory dial condition at least once, you turn your dial one click. If you have fulfilled your condition more times this turn than any other player, you turn your dial two clicks. This dial gives various rewards, including Upgrades, VPs, and control of the tokens on the board.
6. Check for Game end
The game end conditions are checked one at a time, in this order:

Dial Victory
Victory Point Victory
All 5 ruination cards drawn (most VPs wins)
No cards in the Old World deck (All players lose)

In the case of a dial victory tie, the player with most VPs wins. If they are tied, the victory is shared.
In the case of a VP victory tie, the player with the highest threat wins.

How do I gain victory points?

Gain victory points in 5 ways:
1. Dominating regions at the end of the battle phase
2. Helping to ruin regions by placing corruption counters on them during the step in which ruination occurs
3. Ruining regions and having most or second most counters on the region
4. Sometimes, by advancing your victory dial
5. Some chaos cards can grant you victory points.

The most reliable points come from Domination, while the quickest points come from ruining regions.

What do the Old World tokens do?

Hero - each hero token causes the player in the region with highest threat to remove one figure from the region; used by Slaanesh for earning DACs (Dial Advance counters)
Noble - increase the VP awarded for dominating a region by one; used by Slaanesh for earning DACs
Peasant - no effect, unless an Old World card gives it one; can be killed (one hit) and saved on your player mat; sometimes VP are awarded
Skaven - decrease the resistance of a region by one, making it easier to dominate; used by the Horned Rat for earning DACs
Warpstone - count as corruption when checking for ruination; used by Tzeentch for earning DACs

Power of Pestilence - +1 PP per turn
Provender of Ruin - Score 3 VP each time a region is ruined
Lepers - A Leper's cost is 0 if placed in a region where you have no other figures. A given leper may only be summoned for free once per round.
Plaguebearers - When an opponent kills one of your plaguebearers in battle, inflict one hit on any figure in the same region belonging to that opponent
Great Unclean One - Immediately place two corruption tokens in a region when you summon a Great Unclean One there

Tzeentch Upgrades:

Power of Magic - +1 PP per turn
Deluge of Magic - Draw to 6 cards per turn instead of 5
Acolytes - When summoned from the board instead of your stockpile, an Acolyte may bring a Warpstone token if present from its origin to its destination
Horrors - When you summon a horror, you may place it on an empty card slot in that region. Only you may play cards to that slot while the horror remains.
Lord of Change - A Lord of Change has 2 magic symbols.

Slaanesh Upgrades:

Power of Pain - +1 PP per turn. If you have power of pain and power of pleasure, total +3
Power of Pleasure - +1 PP per turn. If you have power of pain and power of pleasure, total +3
Seductress - New stats (1/0/2)
Daemonettes - In battle, Daemonettes can only be hit on a die result of 6
Keeper of Secrets - At the beginning of the battle phase, choose any cultist or warrior in this region. Control it until the end of the round or until your keeper of secrets is killed, whichever comes first.

MORRSLIEB UPGRADES

Khorne Upgrades:

Crimson Tide - Each time you dominate a region, draw one Chaos card.
Vengeance - In any region where you are rolling at least one battle die, you may roll one additional battle die.
Bloodsworn - Each Bloodworn counts as two figures toward your domination value of any region that it occupies.
Bloodletters - You gain two victory points each time you kill a figure in a region containing a Bloodletter.
Bloodthirster - Once per round during the summoning phase, you may summon a Bloodthirster for 0 power into a region that contains six or more corruption tokens once per round.

Nurgle Upgrades:

Cavalcade of Decay - Any region containing five or more Cultists is considered Populous.
Infested Colony - When you dominate a region, place two corruption tokens in that region.
Lepers - When your Lepers place at least one corruption token in a region during the corruption phase, you may place one additional corruption token in that region.
Plaguebearers - When a Plaguebearer is killed during the battle phase, place one of your corruption tokens in that region.
Great Unclean One - For every figure you kill in the same region as a Great Unclean One, you may place one corruption token in that region.

Tzeentch Upgrades:

Mystical Disregard - Once per round, you may play a Chaos card on top of an opponent's Chaos card, canceling its effect. The card you play must have power equal to or greater than the card you cover.
Well of Power - During the summoning phase, instead of summoning a figure or playing a Chaos card, you may spend one power point to draw one Chaos card.
Acolytes - Once per round during the battle phase, you may discard a card from your hand to cancel one hit assigned to one of your Acolytes.
Horrors - When you play a Chaos card with a magic symbol, you may immediately summon a Horror to that region for 0 power.
Lord of Change - When you summon a Lord of Change into a region, you may place one Warpstone token in that region.

Slaanesh Upgrades:

Fall from Grace - If you place three or more corruption tokens in a region with a Noble or Hero token, collect two dial advancement counters instead of only one.
Rise to Glory - When calculating domination in a region, each noble token adds one to your domination value in that region.
Seductresses - When summoned from the board (rather than from your stockpile), a Seductress figure may bring a Noble token (if present) from its origin region to its destination region.
Daemonettes - When you summon a Daemonette into a region, you may take control of an opponent's Cultist in that region until the end of the turn. (Place the Cultist next to the Daemonette as a reminder.)
Keeper of Secrets - A Keeper of Secrets counts as three Noble tokens.

Horned Rat* Upgrades:

The Council of Thirteen - Once per round during the summoning phase, you may play a Chaos card into a region whose card spaces are full. (Place this third Chaos card near the other card spaces in the region.)
The Under Empire - You treat all regions with Skaven tokens as adjacent regions. When a region is ruined, you may immediately move any number of your figures from that region into one adjacent region.
Clan Rats - When you summon a Clan Rat into a region where you do not currently have any Clan Rats, you may summon one additional Clan Rat to that region for 0 power.
Rat Ogres - Opponents cannot assign hits to Clan Rats until they first assign enough hits to kill all Rat Ogres in the region.
Vermin Lord - You may summon a Vermin Lord from the board (rather than from your stockpile) for 1 power.

I made a table for expected results up to 6 battle dice. Cells without values have probabilities below 0.1%. There is some rounding, so the values won't be exact, but they'll be close enough for most purposes.

We'll be using both google-docs and admanb's handtracker for this game; you'll need to make an account for the handtracker and PM me an email address.

Once the game begins, you'll use the "Draw to hand" command on handtracker to draw cards. To play cards or discard them, click the "Play" button on the card in your hand, then link the action in the thread with the name of the card.

Darian's personal Unofficial FAQ for the Horned Rat (Now with some official rulings):

Set up - how many Old World Cards should be used for a 3 player game including the Horned Rat? 4p? 5p?
[FAQ - 7 cards for 4 or 5 players, 8 for 3, regardless of the Horned Rat's presence.]

Dial advancement counters for Tzeentch, and Slaanesh -- are these once per region per phase, or can Tzeentch and Slaanesh spread out their corruption placement across phases? Can Tzeentch or Slaanesh earn more than one DAC from a single region during a round (e.g. from Havoc in battle then from corruption placement)?
[FAQ states that Tzeentch can earn a DAC during the summoning phase.
My ruling: One DAC may be earned in a region per phase per player. I'm going to interpret this as meaning that the condition must be met entirely within a phase. This was partially clarified by the FAQ but still leaves a bit of interpretation needed.]

Horned Rat's dial -- for Summon X, does the summoned figure need to be adjacent to your current figures?
[My ruling - Yes, it must be adjacent since it does not say "in any region".]

Rampage -- Essentially, does this act like the battle phase in all ways, or is it simply a battle?
[FAQ - This is just a battle, not acting like the battle phase. Things that specify "battle phase" do not trigger from a [COLOR="Red"]Rampage[/COLOR] battle, but things like Vengeance (which only mentions battle dice) do.
Reference summary:
Trigger: Vengeance, Bloodbath, Skulltaker, Bloodletters, Great Unclean One, Pleasure Shield, Strength in Numbers, Vermin Outbreak
Do not trigger: Choking Stench, Plaguebearers, Warpstorm, Havoc, Transmorgrify, Acolytes, Shroud of Secrets, Greenskins Invade, Electors Sue for Peace]

Skulltaker followed by Rampage - can the killed units be summoned away from the region?
[FAQ - No; the figures cannot be removed before the card is discarded in the end phase.]

Terror - can you choose to move only some cultists, leaving behind the cultists from another god?
[My ruling - Yes, you make the choice to move or not separately for each god. And all the ones you move must go to the same region.]

Bloodletter upgrade - Is it limited to once per region, or does every figure killed grant VP?
[FAQ - Each figure killed is worth 2 VP.]

Bloodthirster upgrade - Does this summoning get around the adjacency requirement? Do Warpstones count as corruption when determining whether a region is a valid target?
[FAQ - No. It changes the cost if the destination region matches the requirement, but it is missing the "any region" key phrase that usually indicates teleportation effects.
My ruling - No. Warpstones are considered as corruption only when checking for Ruination, not at other times.]

Does corruption placed by Filth or Blue Scribes grant a DAC? (For Filth, of course, it would take 2 of them in the same region)
[FAQ - Yes; move, place, same thing. As an errata, they changed Filth to be two separate events-remove, then place.]

Do Quicken Decay and Festival of Sinew trigger on figures that are moved by other effects? What if their own figures are moved out by an opponent (e.g., by Terror)?
[FAQ - Bolt of Change using a new key word "replace" which does not trigger Quicken or Festival.
My ruling - Yes; move, summon, place, same thing. And it looks for the source of the movement, not the owner of the figure.]

Can Convocation pull figures from more than one region?
[FAQ - They must come from the same region.]

How many corruption tokens will each warrior or greater daemon place if two Havoc cards are in the same region?
[My ruling - Havoc is a replacement effect--instead of rolling battle dice, the warriors place one corruption. I can see this one argued either way:
A. when the second Havoc resolves, they are no longer rolling battle dice, so it has no effect.
B. Havoc stops them from rolling battle dice then has them place a corruption; they would place one corruption for each Havoc card in the region.
I will go with interpretation A, so they will only place one corruption each.]

Warp Portal with an upgraded Horror -- is the newly placed Horror a valid target for the Portal's teleportation?
[FAQ - No, the new horror is not placed until the card has been resolved.]

Acolytes upgrade -- after you cancel a hit, can the opponent still kill your acolyte by applying their next hit to it? Can another opponent kill the acolyte with their hits?
[FAQ - This upgrade triggers after all powers assign their hits for the region, but before killed figures are removed.]

Lord of Change upgrade -- if it is moved by Warp Portal, can it place a Warpstone? What if it is moved by Lambs to the Slaughter?
[FAQ - Only triggers if Tzeentch does the summoning. Warp Portal, yes, Lambs to the Slaughter, no.]

Shroud of Secrets -- if a player does not have enough hits left to kill an opponent's figure, can they apply the remaining hits to Slaanesh's? (e.g., if a Rat Ogre is present with some Seductresses and no Peasants, and Khorne only rolls one hit, can he target the Seductress or must he waste the hit?)
[My ruling - No; the Slaanesh figures are not legal targets while anything else is alive.]

Daemonette upgrade -- if the Daemonette dies or is summoned away from the region, does the cultist remain under Slaanesh's control?
[My ruling - Since they didn't specify, as they did for the KoS in the base set, I'm going to guess they intended the control to persist, regardless, so I'll rule yes. This also implies that Slaanesh can summon the cultist away without losing control, just as with Soporific Musk in the base game.]

Can Slaanesh take advantage of the Leper upgrade if his Daemonette upgrade gives him control of one?
[My ruling - Yes. You in the Leper upgrade refers to the controller of the Leper, not just to Nurgle.]

What happens when Slaanesh takes control of a follower of the Horned Rat?
[My ruling - A Slaanesh-controlled rat places no corruption, counts as participation for ruination, and counts as its PP cost in corruption when scoring 1st and 2nd ruination.]

Grey Seer with the Clan Rat upgrade - How many rats are summoned?
[FAQ - The upgrade gives one additional rat when you summon to a region with no rats present, so the Grey Seer will summon 3 rats instead of 2.]

Strength in Numbers and Verminous Horde -- what is the trigger condition for these? Are they the same, or is there a difference between them?
[FAQ - The same; the Horned Rat must have more figures than at least one opponent who is present in the region.
My ruling - Following this to its logical conclusion, the cards will give no effect if only the horned rat is in the region. That seems odd to me, so as a house rule it will also trigger if only the rat has figures present.]

The Under Empire -- are the figures moved before or after the ruination bonus VP are awarded for being present in the region? (Essentially, if HR moves all his figures out, does he still get the ruination bonus? I know he won't be eligible for 1st/2nd place if he uses this.)
Also, are regions with a Skaven token considered adjacent to all other regions, or just to other regions containing Skaven tokens?
[FAQ - Timing of this happens after the contributing bonus for presence, so that the same rat can take part in more than one ruination.
My ruling - Regions containing Skaven are adjacent to each other, not to all regions.]

The Light of Day/High Elf Protection -- can players choose a ruined region, to avoid placing the token? If so, can more than one player choose the same ruined region? Essentially, I'm wondering whether you meant "In order of Threat level (highest first), each player places one Event token in a different region."
[FAQ - Ruined regions cannot be chosen for Old World card effects. Only if there is not valid region can the placement be avoided.]

How do effects which grant additional dice or corruption interact with effects which limit or reduce? For example, if Choking Stench and another Nurgle card would reduce a bloodletter's dice to zero, will Vengeance still grant Khorne a battle die? If there is a single upgraded Leper in a region with Call to Arms! in play, does it place it's bonus corruption?
[FAQ - Old World effects are persistent and apply first; then, disabling effects are applied before enabling effects.
My ruling - "Additional" effects apply only if you would still have regular dice/corruption after all reductions. You can never have only the additional ones; in the examples above, Khorne would not roll any dice and Nurgle would not place any corruption.]

Does Vermin Outbreak apply a cost to free summons from upgraded figures? Does it change the cost of figures summoned or moved by spells?
[My ruling - Free summons are affected; a cost of 0 is still a cost. Upgraded horrors would cost 1 PP in addition to the cost of the spell; the Bloodthirster could be summoned once at a cost of 1 PP.
Chaos card effects are noted as being immune to Vermin Outbreak, so summons from Convocation or Grey Seer would not be affected.]

I think I've played everybody but Khorne in the expansion, so I guess he's my first choice. Otherwise I'd like another crack at Horned Rat, I think, now that I actually know how his stuff works. After that I have no real god preference.

If it's alright with you, Darian, I'll let @Elldren play instead of me, as she was up to play in Game 72 and missed out due to a short wait (and I'm particularly sensitive to such issues). If it's not ok or if she declines, my preferences:

As usual, when I try to be a nice guy, I just end up looking like a douche anyway. I remember Tayrun saying he was looking for a more newbie-ish game, so I figured another player with less experience would also be better. Kill two birds with one stone, right? But I probably should've done some PMing before posting and showing people up.

Dwarf Trollslayers
Place one Hero token in each of Norsca and Kislev, or place one Hero token in each of Troll Country and The Empire.
In the end phase when Old World cards are resolved, the player with the smallest Threat score places an additional Hero token in any region where there is already a Hero token.

(M) Warp Token Cache - 2 - If you dominate this region, place this card on your power sheet. You may discard this card from your power sheet at the beginning of the summoning phase to immediately gain two power points.

Empire: Festival (+1 PP when others summon a figure here)
Bretonnia: Warpstorm (place a Warpstone here if you kill a figure)
Tilea: Cache (save card if dominated; turn in later for +2 PP at the start of the summoning phase)